The narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita (1955), Humbert Humbert dubs his devil "Aubrey McFate:"
This proved to be the last of twenty entries or so. It will be seen from them that for all the devil’s inventiveness, the scheme remained daily the same. First he would tempt me - and then thwart me, leaving me with a dull pain in the very root of my being. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and how to do it, without impinging on a child’s chastity; after all, I had had some experience in my life of pederosis; had visually possessed dappled nymphets in parks; had wedged my wary and bestial way into the hottest, most crowded corner of a city bus full of straphanging school children. But for almost three weeks I had been interrupted in all my pathetic machinations. The agent of these interruptions was usually the Haze woman (who, as the reader will mark, was more afraid of Lo’s deriving some pleasure from me than of my enjoying Lo). The passion I had developed for that nymphet - for the first nymphet in my life that could be reached at last by my awkward, aching, timid claws - would have certainly landed me again in a sanatorium, had not the devil realized that I was to be granted some relief if he wanted to have me as a plaything for some time longer.
The reader has also marked the curious Mirage of the Lake. It would have been logical on the part of Aubrey McFate (as I would like to dub that devil of mine) to arrange a small treat for me on the promised beach, in the presumed forest. Actually, the promise Mrs. Haze had made was a fraudulent one: she had not told me that Mary Rose Hamilton (a dark little beauty in her own right) was to come too, and that the two nymphets would be whispering apart, and playing apart, and having a good time all by themselves, while Mrs. Haze and her handsome lodger conversed sedately in the seminude, far from prying eyes. Incidentally, eyes did pry and tongues did wag. How queer life is! We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo. Before my actual arrival, my landlady had planned to have an old spinster, a Miss Phalen, whose mother had been cook in Mrs. Haze’s family, come to stay in the house with Lolita and me, while Mrs. Haze, a career girl at heart, sought some suitable job in the nearest city. Mrs. Haze had seen the whole situation very clearly: the bespectacled, round-backed Herr Humbert coming with his Central-European trunks to gather dust in his corner behind a heap of old books; the unloved ugly little daughter firmly supervised by Miss Phalen who had already once had my Lo under her buzzard wing (Lo recalled that 1944 summer with an indignant shudder); and Mrs. Haze herself engaged as a receptionist in a great elegant city. But a not too complicated event interfered with that program. Miss Phalen broke her hip in Savannah, Ga., on the very day I arrived in Ramsdale. (1.12)
McFate, Aubrey is Lolita's classmate at the Ramsdale school. Aubrey McFate brings to mind gnarled McFate mentioned by Humbert in his poem "Wanted" (composed in a madhouse near Quebec after Lolita's escape from the Elphinstone hospital):
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life. (2.25)
The characters in VN's novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937) include Herman Ivanovich Busch, a writer from Riga who helps Fyodor to publish his book on Chernyshevski. A character in a philosophical tragedy that Busch reads aloud at a literary soiree, Odinokiy Sputnik (Lone Companion) says "Vsyo est' sud'ba (all is fate):"
«Здравствуйте, Федор Константинович, здравствуйте, дорогой», – крикнул поверх его головы, хотя уже пожимая ему руку, движущийся, протискивающийся, похожий на раскормленную черепаху адвокат – и уже приветствовал кого-то другого. Но вот поднялся со своего места Васильев и на мгновение опершись о столешницу легким прикосновением пальцев, свойственным приказчикам и ораторам, объявил собрание открытым. «Господин Буш, – добавил он, – прочтет нам свою новую, свою философскую трагедию».
Герман Иванович Буш, пожилой, застенчивый, крепкого сложения, симпатичный рижанин, похожий лицом на Бетховена, сел за столик ампир, гулко откашлялся, развернул рукопись; у него заметно дрожали руки и продолжали дрожать во все время чтения.
Уже в самом начале наметился путь беды. Курьезное произношение чтеца было несовместимо с темнотою смысла. Когда, еще в прологе, появился идущий по дороге Одинокий Спутник, Федор Константинович напрасно понадеялся, что это метафизический парадокс, а не предательский ляпсус. Начальник Городской Стражи, ходока не пропуская, несколько раз повторил, что он «наверно́е не пройдет». Городок был приморский (Спутник шел из Hinterland’a), и в нем пьянствовал экипаж греческого судна. Происходил такого рода разговор на Улице Греха:
Первая Проститутка
Все есть вода. Так говорит гость мой Фалес.
Вторая Проститутка
Все есть воздух, сказал мне юный Анаксимен.
Третья Проститутка
Все есть число. Мой лысый Пифагор не может ошибиться.
Четвертая Проститутка
Гераклит ласкает меня, шептая: все есть огонь.
Спутник (входит)
Все есть судьба.
Кроме того было два хора, из которых один каким-то образом представлял собой волну физика де Бройля и логику истории, а другой, хороший хор, с ним спорил. «Первый матрос, второй матрос, третий матрос», – нервным, с мокрыми краями, баском пересчитывал Буш беседующих лиц. Появились какие-то: Торговка Лилий, Торговка Фиалок и Торговка Разных Цветов. Вдруг что-то колыхнулось: в публике начались осыпи.
Вскоре установились силовые линии по разным направлениям через все просторное помещение, – связь между взглядами трех-четырех, потом пяти-шести, а там и десяти людей, что составляло почти четверть собрания. Кончеев медленно и осторожно взял с этажерки, у которой сидел, большую книгу (Федор Константинович заметил, что это альбом персидских миниатюр), и все так же медленно поворачивая ее то так, то сяк на коленях, начал ее тихо и близоруко рассматривать. У Чернышевской был удивленный и оскорбленный вид, но вследствие своей тайной этики, как-то связанной с памятью сына, она заставляла себя слушать. Буш читал быстро, его лоснящиеся скулы вращались, горела подковка в черном галстуке, а ноги под столиком стояли носками внутрь, – и чем глубже, сложнее и непонятнее становилась идиотская символика трагедии, тем ужаснее требовал выхода мучительно сдерживаемый, подземно-бьющийся клекот, и многие уже нагибались, боясь смотреть, и когда на площади начался Танец Масков, то вдруг кто-то – Гец – кашлянул, и вместе с кашлем вырвался какой-то добавочный вопль, и тогда Гец закрылся ладонями, а погодя из-за них опять появился, с бессмысленно ясным лицом и мокрой лысиной, между тем как на диване, за спиной Любови Марковны, Тамара просто легла и каталась в родовых муках, а лишенный прикрытия Федор Константинович обливался слезами, изнемогая от вынужденной беззвучности происходившего в нем. Внезапно Васильев так тяжко повернулся на стуле, что он неожиданно треснул, поддалась ножка, и Васильев рванулся, переменившись в лице, но не упал, – и это мало смешное происшествие явилось предлогом для какого-то звериного, ликующего взрыва, прервавшего чтение, и покуда Васильев переселялся на другой стул, Герман Иванович Буш, наморщив великолепный, но совершенно недоходный лоб, что-то в рукописи отмечал карандашиком, и среди облегченного затишья неизвестная дама еще отдельно простонала что-то, но уже Буш приступал к дальнейшему чтению:
Торговка Лилий
Ты сегодня чем-то огорчаешься, сестрица.
Торговка Разных Цветов
Да, мне гадалка сказала, что моя дочь выйдет замуж за вчерашнего прохожего.
Дочь
Ах, я даже его не заметила.
Торговка Лилий
И он не заметил ее.
«Слушайте, слушайте!» – вмешался хор, вроде как в английском парламенте.
Опять произошло небольшое движение: началось через всю комнату путешествие пустой папиросной коробочки, на которой толстый адвокат написал что-то, и все наблюдали за этапами ее пути, написано было, верно, что-то чрезвычайно смешное, но никто не читал, она честно шла из рук в руки, направляясь к Федору Константиновичу, и когда, наконец, добралась до него, то он прочел на ней: «Мне надо будет потом переговорить с вами о маленьком деле».
Последнее действие подходило к концу. Федора Константиновича незаметно покинул бог смеха, и он раздумчиво смотрел на блеск башмака. С парома на холодный берег. Правый жал больше левого. Кончеев, полуоткрыв рот, досматривал альбом. «Занавес», – воскликнул Буш с легким ударением на последнем слоге.
“Hello, hello, dear Fyodor Konstantinovich!” A fat lawyer who resembled an overfed turtle shouted this over Fyodor’s head, although already shaking his hand while pushing through the crowd, and by now he was already greeting someone else. Then Vasiliev rose from his seat and leaning lightly on the table for a moment with splayed fingers, in a position peculiar to shopkeepers and orators, announced that the meeting was opened. “Mr. Busch,” he added, “will now read us his new, philosophical tragedy.”
Herman Ivanovich Busch, an elderly, shy, solidly built, likable gentleman from Riga, with a head that looked like Beethoven’s, seated himself at the little Empire table, emitted a throaty rumble and unfolded his manuscript; his hands trembled perceptibly and continued to tremble throughout the reading.
From the very beginning it was apparent that the road led to disaster. The Rigan’s farcical accent and bizarre solecisms were incompatible with the obscurity of his meaning. When, already in the Prologue, there appeared a “Lone Companion” (odinokiy sputnik instead of odinokiy putnik, lone wayfarer) walking along that road, Fyodor still hoped against hope that this was a metaphysical paradox and not a traitorous lapsus. The Chief of the Town Guard, not admitting the traveler, repeated several times that he “would not pass definitely” (rhyming with “nightly”). The town was a coastal one (the lone companion was coming from the Hinterland) and the crew of a Greek vessel was carousing there. This conversation went on in the Street of Sin:
FIRST PROSTITUTE
All is water. That is what my client Thales says.
SECOND PROSTITUTE
All is air, young Anaximenes told me.
THIRD PROSTITUTE
All is number. My bald Pythagoras cannot be wrong.
FOURTH PROSTITUTE
Heraclitus caresses me whispering “All is fire.”
LONE COMPANION (enters)
All is fate.
There were also two choruses, one of which somehow managed to represent the de Broglie’s waves and the logic of history, while the other chorus, the good one, argued with it. “First Sailor, Second Sailor, Third Sailor,” continued Busch, enumerating the conversing characters in his nervous bass voice edged with moisture. There also appeared three flower vendors: a “Lilies’ Woman,” a “Violets’ Woman” and a “Woman of Different Flowers.” Suddenly something gave: little landslides began among the audience.
Before long, certain power lines formed in various directions all across the room—a network of exchanged glances between three or four, then five or six, then ten people, which represented a third of the gathering. Koncheyev slowly and carefully took a large volume from the bookshelf near which he was sitting (Fyodor noticed that it was an album of Persian miniatures), and just as slowly turning it this way and that in his lap, he began to glance through it with myopic eyes. Mme. Chernyshevski wore a surprised and hurt expression, but in keeping with her secret ethics, somehow tied up with the memory of her son, she was forcing herself to listen. Busch was reading rapidly, his glossy jowls gyrated, the horseshoe in his black tie sparkled, while beneath the table his feet stood pigeon-toed—and as the idiotic symbolism of the tragedy became ever deeper, more involved and less comprehensible, the painfully repressed, subterraneously raging hilarity more and more desperately needed an outlet, and many were already bending over, afraid to look, and when the Dance of the Maskers began in the square, someone—Getz it was—coughed, and together with the cough there issued a certain additional whoop, whereupon Getz covered his face with his hands and after a while emerged again with a senselessly bright countenance and humid, bald head, while on the couch Tamara had simply lain down and was rocking as if in the throes of labor, while Fyodor, who was deprived of protection, shed floods of tears, tortured by the forced noiselessness of what was going on inside him. Unexpectedly Vasiliev turned in his chair so ponderously that a leg collapsed with a crack and Vasiliev lurched forward with a changed expression, but did not fall, and this event, not funny in itself, served as a pretext for an elemental, orgiastic explosion to interrupt the reading, and while Vasiliev was transferring his bulk to another chair, Herman Ivanovich Busch, knitting his magnificent but quite unfruitful brow, jotted something on the manuscript with a pencil stub, and in the relieved calm an unidentified woman uttered something in a separate final moan, but Busch was already going on:
LILIES’ WOMAN
You’re all upset about something today, sister.
WOMAN OF DIFFERENT FLOWERS
Yes, the fortuneteller told me that my daughter would marry yesterday’s passerby.
DAUGHTER
Oh, I did not even notice him.
LILIES’ WOMAN
And he did not notice her.
“Hear, hear!” chimed in the Chorus, as in the British Parliament. Again there was a slight commotion: an empty cigarette box, on which the fat lawyer had written something, began a journey across the whole room, and everybody followed the stages of its trip; something extremely funny must have been written on it, but no one read it and it was passed dutifully from hand to hand, destined for Fyodor, and when it finally reached him, he read on it: Later I want to discuss a certain little affair with you .
The last act was nearing its conclusion. The god of laughter imperceptibly forsook Fyodor and he gazed meditatively at the shine of his shoe. Onto the cold shore from the ferry. The right one pinched more than the left. Koncheyev, his mouth half open, was leafing through the final pages of the album. “Zanaves [curtain],” exclaimed Busch, accenting the last syllable instead of the first. (Chapter One)
Torgovka Liliy (Lilies' Woman) brings to mind Charlotte's lilies in Lolita:
Reluctantly I followed her downstairs again; then through the kitchen at the end of the hall, on the right side of the house - the side where also the dining room and the parlor were (under “my” room, on the left, there was nothing but a garage). In the kitchen, the Negro maid, a plump youngish woman, said, as she took her large glossy black purse from the knob of the door leading to the back porch: “I’ll go now, Mrs. Haze.” “Yes, Louise,” answered Mrs. Haze with a sigh. “I’ll settle with you Friday.” We passed on to a small pantry and entered the dining room, parallel to the parlor we had already admired. I noticed a white sock on the floor. With a deprecatory grunt, Mrs. Haze stooped without stopping and threw it into a closet next to the pantry. We cursorily inspected a mahogany table with a fruit vase in the middle, containing nothing but the still glistening stone of one plum. I groped for the timetable I had in my pocket and surreptitiously fished it out to look as soon as possible for a train. I was still walking behind Mrs. Haze though the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst of greenery “the piazza,” sang out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.
It was the same child - the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day. And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, kidnaped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side. With awe and delight (the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts - that last mad immortal day behind the “Roches Roses.” The twenty-five years I had lived since then, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished.
I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that flash, that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition. In the course of the sun-shot moment that my glance slithered over the kneeling child (her eyes blinking over those stern dark spectacles - the little Herr Doktor who was to cure me of all my aches) while I passed by her in my adult disguise (a great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood), the vacuum of my soul managed to suck in every detail of her bright beauty, and these I checked against the features of my dead bride. A little later, of course, she, this nouvelle, this Lolita, my Lolita, was to eclipse completely her prototype. All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that “princedom by the sea” in my tortured past. Everything between the two events was but a series of gropings and blunders, and false rudiments of joy. Everything they shared made one of them.
I have no illusions, however. My judges will regard all this as a piece of mummery on the part of a madman with a gross liking for the fruit vert. Au fond, a m’est bien égal. All I now is that while the Haze woman and I went down the steps into the breathless garden, my knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand, and -
“That was my Lo,” she said, “and these are my lilies.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” (1.10)